WhatsApp now charges for replies after 1,000 a month

The change Meta announced on 1 July took effect this morning. For most small businesses in India, it’s the biggest change to the WhatsApp bill since Meta moved to per-message pricing in July 2025.

What changed on 1 October

When a customer messages your business, a 24-hour customer service window opens. Inside it you can reply in ordinary messages, without a template. Those replies had been free since November 2024.

Since today:

• Replies inside the window are charged at the utility rate. For customers on Indian (+91) numbers that’s ₹0.115 per delivered message, before GST, with no volume discount.
• Each business phone number gets 1,000 of these replies free every month. Replies to one person and replies in groups share the allowance, and a group message uses one unit for every member it reaches. Unused replies don’t roll over.
• Utility templates sent while the window is open are charged too. An order confirmation sent a minute after the customer wrote in used to cost nothing. It now costs ₹0.115.

The window itself works as before. To message someone who hasn’t written to you in the last 24 hours, you still need a template Meta has approved.

If your Meta account has no payment method on it, Meta says it will deliver replies within the free 1,000 and stop delivering them once the allowance is used up. Check this before the middle of the month, not after.

What is still free

• Reactions. A 👍 on a customer’s message costs nothing and doesn’t count towards the 1,000 (changelog, 29 September).
• The window after a click-to-WhatsApp ad. When someone messages you from an ad on the WhatsApp phone app and you reply inside the service window, a free entry point window opens and every message in it is free. Meta’s pricing page now says it “may remain open for up to 7 days” (changelog, 28 September). It used to be 72 hours.
• Government bodies and eligible non-profits keep free replies beyond the allowance until 31 December 2027.

India’s rates for marketing, utility and authentication templates did not change today.

Message to an Indian number	Until 30 Sep 2026	From 1 Oct 2026
Reply inside the 24-hour window	Free	Free up to 1,000 a month per number, then ₹0.115
Utility template inside the window	Free	₹0.115
Utility template outside the window	₹0.115	₹0.115
Marketing template	₹0.8631	₹0.8631
Anything in the click-to-WhatsApp ad window	Free (72 hours)	Free (up to 7 days)

Meta’s list prices per delivered message, before GST. A provider that bills Meta’s charges through its own invoice may show different figures.

What it costs a typical shop

Take a home-décor store in Jaipur with one WhatsApp number. It sends about 4,000 replies a month. The first 1,000 are free, and the other 3,000 cost 3,000 × ₹0.115 = ₹345. It also sends around 600 order confirmations while customers are still chatting, which adds 600 × ₹0.115 = ₹69. So the change costs this store about ₹414 a month before GST.

That’s a small line for most teams. It gets bigger for a busy support desk, and for anyone whose staff reply in fragments.

What to check this week

1. Count replies per number. Your provider can show messages sent per number per month. Under about 1,000, nothing changes for you yet.
2. Go through your automatic messages. “We got your message” auto-replies, receipts and confirmations sent inside the window now cost money. Keep the ones customers need and merge the rest.
3. Use a reaction when all you mean is “seen”. It’s free.
4. If you run click-to-WhatsApp ads, reply inside the service window. The free window only opens once you do, and it now lasts up to a week. Don’t count on free windows from Facebook Page buttons: Meta’s newer pricing page names only ads.

For whoever reads your webhooks

Charged messages come back with pricing.type set to "regular" and billable: true. Replies still inside the free allowance report "free_customer_service". Counting the second kind per number is the simplest way to see when a number is about to cross 1,000.

Meta only changes prices at the start of a quarter, so the next possible change is 1 January 2027. The full India rate table, with worked monthly bills, is in what WhatsApp will cost you from October 2026.